Click here to increase to legible size

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

The only books during that time that kept me interested enough to finish them were “The Gingerman” and “One Hundred Years of Solitude“. Those days are long gone and I’ve no trouble flying through books these days, but the length of the book is an important factor in measuring how much you enjoy it.

Yawn! Getting through too much detail has its toll

All credit to the likes of War and Peace, but I’m firmly on the side of keeping it brief. If a book sticks to the essence of the story without deviating too much, staying humorous as much as possible, then it will entertain and grab you and you won’t want to put it down. Moreover, if it hasn’t waffled on, then you’ll want to read more by the same author.

There is a problem with a lot of GAA books, hurling books and other sports books in that they are overloaded with waffle. There’s a dilemma, for sure, to be faced by the authors of such books: If they are being written primarily for the benefit of the fans of the subject, then the assumption is that the fan/buyer will want to know as much as possible about their beloved subject. The tendency, therefore, is to make sure to cram as many facts, figures, scores and results as possible into the thing.

The trouble with that is that it makes it boring and that has been a problem that has plagued such books. They become reference books.

In setting out to write this book, ( about former Waterford hurler and skills coach Ned Power) I wanted it to be not so much a reference book but entertaining in the first place, and devoid of the boring overload of technical detail that drags down similar books.  Hopefully, that’s been achieved – we’ll see what people have to say…

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

The national club championships are a strange sort of end to the year, I have always thought.  I’ve wondered about how motivation can be kept going at this late hour of the year, when so many people have deserted the trail of adventure that the summer brought and when the weather is even more awful than it is in summer.

Ballygunner - Waterford's representatives take on Cratloe next Sunday

From the comfort of your home, you can follow most of the action live by tuning in to one of the most worthwhile uses of tax euros – TG4: as creative and energetic a channel as you’re likely to find anywhere.  So many people in this country of ours pay out a subscription to a nasty half-wit megalomaniac to watch overpaid clowns cheat and feign injury on the circus that is the English professional soccer league.

See some real people playing real sport for real reasons on TG4 every weekend with the All-Ireland hurling and football championships.  Once they’re over, then get back to your GAA books.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

So far, Henry Martin’s “Unlimited Heartbreak” seems to be well in front with Cody’s biography scoring a low count just at the moment. Also, Donal Og Cusack’s biography/autobiography is not really on the radar just yet.

A view of approximately one tenth of the GAA Books of 2009

The poll should be more interesting once the reading public has had a chance to get their teeth into the books that will be put out over the coming month.  So far, the size of the votes seem to be reflective of how long the book is out, so before the end of the year, we may get a more representative picture emerging.

One that isn’t out yet (although it will shortly be in print – this week, in fact) is the biography of Ned Power – due to be launched in Dungarvan on the 26th of November.

Part hurling book and part memoir, it will have a broader appeal than most so-called GAA books and it will therefore be interesting to see how it fares.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

There’s nothing wrong with that.  There are still books like that coming out.  Even the one about Ned Power is a little bit like that in many ways.  The GAA itself brought out a coffee table book of many images recently too.

But nowadays, the tendency is for the “tell-all” book; the one that reveals something spectacular, something sensational, something controversial that will have the head honchos in Croke Park bristling and the ladies in every parish blessing themselves while the gentlemen hang their heads and tut them over and back in disbelief and disgrace.

But are these books saying anything worthwhile? Yes, and no, I suppose. It’s all down to how sincerely and entertainingly the thing is written. The novelty wears off and you soon see what you’re left with.  Just don’t judge a book by its cover.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

The debate is going to continue on both issues for a time to come.  From my own slightly cynical point of view, when I hear organisations talking about safety issues, I feel the pervasive presence of an insurance company whispering in the ears of decision-makers.  It’s also linked, perhaps, to the growing presence of the GPA and it represents, perhaps, a marking of lines – a defensive ploy, a laying down of a few sandbags if you like – in anticipation of the bitter battles to come between the GPA and the GAA.

Kilkenny Helmet Police arresting Dan Shanahan for the non-wearing of his helmet during this years AI SF.

But being bright and positive about it, although the measure of forcing senior goalkeepers to wear the sight-restrictive clobber seems quite daft, the whole exercise has already proven itself at lower levels in reducing the rate of serious accidents.  So that’s a good thing to be welcomed.  It remains to be seen what effect it will have on defenders and goalkeepers, however.  I’m betting that next year’s championship could see an even higher aggregate score amongst teams.  Fifty years ago, Waterford were knocking in an average of about six goals per game on their way to their last All-Ireland win.  If they could get ahead of the posse and invent some class of helmet that would allow the goalie to see through it, then the advantage would be with them and we’ll see how many goals they’ll knock in against the likes of Kilkenny then!

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

Santa with yet another GAA book in his hand

In the business of hurling books coming up to Christmas, it’s always a feast or a famine: either there are almost no hurling books or GAA books at all, or there are a lot of them.

Last year, there were not many.  The big sports book for Christmas was Ronan O’Gara’s autobiography, which was written with help from Denis Walsh of the Irish subsidiary of British newspaper Sunday Times.

This year, there are many, many GAA books:  Unlimited Heartbreak, which tells the story of Limerick’s frustrating struggles to reach All-Ireland glory through numerous outspoken characters; The l.iam MacCarthy Cup is a colourful reference tome by veteran Sean Og O Ceallachain and Owen McCann; Come What May has generated more column inches than the rest put together, not least for the fact that it’s written by an openly gay GAA star; Cody is a straight-up account that gives some idea as to what makes this highly successful manager function – the achievements of the team are truly spectacular and historic, although I personally still have reservations about referees’ propensity in the past for allowing Kilkenny get away with the tactic of surrounding the opposing player with the ball and lightly beating him up until he coughs up.

Cream of the crop, however, in my humble opinion, would have to be “My Father; a hurling revolutionary“.  In the first place, there has been no biography written about a Waterford GAA star up to now.  Secondly, the life of Ned Power was a very interesting one – a man who embodied all the best principles and characteristics of the GAA and of sportsmanship in general and whose unyielding efforts were carried out in a spirit of good humour and generosity.  Thirdly, it’s written from the perspective of his son – something which gives it all a truthful and fascinating viewpoint that makes it, I think, a book that will be appreciated equally by hurling and non-hurling people.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

Even though the Gormanston courses were not officially coaching courses (but “training course” under the official nomenclature of the time), coaching is exactly what they were.

Diarmuid Healy of Kilkenny – a man who led neighbouring county Offaly to 2 All-Ireland crowns in the 1980s – is one who sang the praises of the Gormanston camps:

“‘The Gormanston model was way ahead of (the current weekend coaching initiatives). I often ask Croke Park to revisit those days. The just have, in my opinion, Mickey-Mouse ones, weekend ones only. They just touch on it, but that was an in-depth study of the game; you were immersed in it for a week and everything was done in a very thorough way. It was invaluable….

“Anything I learned about hurling came from there. It was all based on the Gormanston model of breaking down the skills, showing players how to perform that skill and getting them to practise and practise them…

In an interview on RTE back in early 2008, Diarmuid also pointed out that “‘hurling and football are two totally different games. The only thing in common is that they’re both run by the GAA. After that, they’re totally different… and we need to set up separate structures in the GAA for hurling and football. There’s no point in the same committee drawing up coaching regulations and coaching practices for both football and hurling.”

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

Gormanston 1965; All smiles before a typically competitive practice match

The Gormanston courses started in 1965 and continued into the late seventies when the GAA bureaucrats decided they had outlived their usefulness. I was there for all of them and will never forget them. Each year seemed to surpass the previous year in enjoyment. Gormanston College is a massive Franciscan second level institution in County Meath some 30 miles north of Dublin. The college possesses every possible educational and recreational facility. Besides dormitories with accommodation for over 300, there is ample provision of private rooms, classrooms, television rooms, language laboratory, a large refectory, a magnificent swimming pool and a beautiful chapel where we occasionally responded to the urge to acknowledge God’s munificence to us. The outdoor facilities could hardly be bettered with charming walks through the spacious grounds (we hardly took any notice of them!), several fine playing pitches, a handball alley with covered spectator accommodation, an athletic cinder track to championship standard and a testing nine hole golf course within the confines of the college complex.

Note the reference to “GAA bureaucrats” deciding that the courses had outlived their usefulness.  Opinion is divided on this one. From the point of view of the GAA heads and of many of the organisers (my father excepted), demand for the courses died away to a point where the Gormanston model had become obsolete and new shorter courses were brought to the clubs around the country.  For others I spoke to, including my father, Justin McCarthy and Diarmuid Healy, it was a scandal that they were stopped and many see the falling numbers attending as a result of a lack of enthusiasm of administrators around the country rather than a lack of demand from people willing to improve their knowledge of hurling.

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.

This year is a bumper harvest, no doubt. Cork hurler Donal Og Cusack’s book is certainly the pick of the crop in terms of generating excitement.  His book is due to feature a number of revelations about his personal life and his views on professionalism in the game that will cause much heated debate in the months to come.

All of this is a far cry from the attitude of players in the 1950s. In those days, players simply played to the best of their abilities and did what they were told.  If they got the opportunity to play for their county, then they humbly accepted and were honoured to do so. Their personal lives were nobody’s business but their own and the idea of taking payment for doing what they loved to do – particularly for their own native county – was simply not within the realm of possibility.

As the organisation has developed over the years, so too have the revenues. Expectations from players have been raised accordingly.  Many would say that those expectations are too high, but it must be remembered that demands on players are not the same as they were 50 years ago.

In the 1959 championship, for example, Waterford came through their provincial games unbeaten. There was no need for any “back door” re-test.  Galway were actually playing in the Munster championship at the time (with very little success), so winning the Munster title put them straight into the final.

Games were a whole 10 minutes shorter and, even with the necessity of a replayed All-Ireland final against Kilkenny, Waterford had a minimum rest-up period between games of 4 weeks.  Going into the the replay against the Cats on October 4th 1959, Waterford were the favourites (God be with the days!), yet one of the chief concerns amongst newspapers at the time was that the Waterford players might suffer from “burn-out” after such a “long campaign”!

“My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power” is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.  Click here for further information, pre-order and excerpt.